The behind-the-scenes story of how this week’s Roberto Luongo trade went down.

PHOENIX — The only guy in the Vancouver Canucks organization who traded Ryan Kesler on Wednesday was goalie Eddie Lack. Apparently, you make a rookie your starter and he thinks he owns the joint.

“Eddie Lack came up to me and told me I got traded to Pittsburgh,” Kesler said. “I’m probably going to shoot at his head the rest of the year. I’m happy I’m still a Canuck.”

Lack was duped by a phoney Twitter account and didn’t really try to trade Kesler. You may wonder, too, how hard general manager Mike Gillis tried to trade Kesler or any other core asset before allowing the National Hockey League trading deadline to pass Wednesday with only one minor move that will do nothing to shake the Canucks from their winter stupor.

Gillis had hoped to follow Tuesday’s blockbuster return of Canucks starting goalie Roberto Luongo to the Florida Panthers with another significant trade or two to further what Vancouver coach John Tortorella, among others, said is the necessary re-tooling of the team.

But the GM refused to yield on his asking price for Vancouver’s best player, frustrating the Pittsburgh Penguins and other bidders, and keeping Kesler with the Canucks until at least the end of this season.

“When you’re in the situation we’re in, teams try to — just like we would — take advantage of your situation,” Gillis said. “Any deals we talked about involving our players, we had a clear idea of the direction we wanted to go, and if those deals didn’t meet those expectations, we weren’t going to do it.”

But doing nothing certainly failed expectations of Canucks fans who crave change and are starting to feel ambivalence, which is worse than anger, toward a team.

“If we had done any of the things today that came our way, other than the trade we made, we would have been highly criticized for them,” Gillis said. “Our fans would have been disappointed. I don’t think we would have met their expectations in trades that were discussed.”

After Kesler returned last week from the Olympics amid a firestorm of reports — denied by the 29-year-old — that he wanted out, Gillis acknowledged that nearly all his players were available in trade for the right price.

The Penguins reportedly offered a package that included centre Brandon Sutter, the choice of two mid-grade prospects, and first- and third-round draft picks. The Canucks are believed to have wanted a premium prospect, such as Portland Winterhawks offensive defenceman Derrick Pouliot, whom Pittsburgh general manager Ray Shero refused to include.

That’s when a report surfaced Tuesday night claiming the Penguins suspected Gillis lacked authority from Canucks ownership to trade Kesler. It was followed Wednesday with a report that owner Francesco Aquilini killed a deal.

“That’s not true,” Gillis said. “That did not happen and I don’t know where that information is coming from. Our ownership did not nix a deal. On days like this, owners, whether they own a hockey team or own a baseball team or own a football team, they’re going to be involved in major decisions you make. They expect you to have a plan and they expect you to carry through with that plan.

“People in the media, there are a lot of assumptions made and a lot of misinformation that gets thrown out there. This day, in particular, seems like a free-for-all. I can’t really worry about that stuff.”

To be fair to the media, both Gillis and Luongo apparently dispensed some misinformation Tuesday when they claimed the goalie’s unhappiness at not starting Sunday’s stadium game in Vancouver had nothing to do with his trade two days later. Luongo’s agent, Pat Brisson, went on radio Wednesday to say it did.

So our skepticism is well-founded, although Gillis did indeed have the green light to make a deal involving Kesler as long as it fit the pre-deadline parameters set by the hockey department and approved by the Aquilini family.

Gillis said Wednesday that economic conditions in the NHL will be far better for making trades after this season. The artificially low salary cap of $64.3 million US is expected to soar to $68 to $70 million for next season.

Expect Kesler’s name to appear regularly in trade stories at the entry draft in June and beyond.

“I’m not in Mike’s head,” Kesler said of the prospect of ongoing trade conjecture. “Hopefully, I’m not in his head. That’s up to him; he’s the general manager.”

For now, Kesler remains a Canuck.

“Good thing I listened to Lou,” Kesler said of Luongo. “He told me from the beginning that no matter if I wanted out or not, I was going to be here at the end of the day. It’s funny how things work out, though.”

With Luongo gone and Kesler here. With all the other Canucks still here from a team that has lost 10 of its last 11 games and is 5-15-4 since Dec. 29.

“Ryan Kesler has been our most consistent and hardest-working player since Day 1,” Tortorella said after the Canucks practised here. “Even through all the stuff going on — a number of different things — he plays hard. I don’t have to say a word to him. I’m not worried about Kes at all.

“He’s one of the top players in the league; that’s why there was so much talk about him. I’m always looking for him (in games) and when I’m looking down at the bench for a player, he’s looking at me. He wants to go out there.

“I have a tremendous amount of respect for him and how he has handled himself. He has played hard every minute that he has been on the ice for us this year.”

Other teams see that, too. Kesler’s value isn’t going to diminish between now and next season.

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